Yoda’s philosophies:

For my ally is the Internet. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. The Internet surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we not this crude matter. You must feel the Internet around you. Here, between you, me, the tree, the rock…everywhere!

-Yoda, regarding the Internet

You see, Yoda’s wise teaching tell us that we should feel the internet around us. News stories everywhere on everything exist. That person you may have walked past just an hour ago may have a website with thousands of page views per day. Every store you walk past has a website. And like Jedi, webmasters use the internet to do good in the world. We use it to bring news for free, to post free videos, and sometimes to make a living.

But, every webmaster must be wary of falling to the dark side. Too quick and too easy, it is:

“Yes. A Webmaster’s strength flows from the Internet. But beware the dark side. Spam, porn, trolling. The dark side of the Internet are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in gaining page views. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice

-Yoda, regarding the Dark Side

As we can tell by Yoda’s teachings, some of us may decide to take the much trodden path to success. We may try to spam, or put out porn, or possibly troll our adversaries. But these are not the ways of a good webmaster. They lead to the dark side.

A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack

-Yoda, regarding usage of the Force

Now then, the way of the webmaster is to use the information you gather from the internet to create more knowledge, and to create a good relation with the rest of the internet. A spammer will go about and spread garbage, teaching others that their ways will lead them to success. A spammer will soon realize that their friends are not actually going to stay, unless their site is filled with real content. That, is what separates a dark webmaster from a light one.

If we heed Yoda’s teachings, we can all learn to use the Internet to defend people and bring down the dark side. Heed them, and you will have nothing to fear of the dark side.

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Coming soon: Kreia’s philosophies on the Internet

Lithium carbonate, the generic name for Eskalith, among others, is a lithium salt.  Lithium is the lightest element to be a solid at room temperature and one atmosphere of pressure.

The biggest drawback to lithium as a treatment for bipolar is it necessitates regular blood tests to ensure proper blood serum levels.  In simple terms, this is how much of it is present in your blood.  Regular kidney function tests are also advised, as lithium is excreted primarily through your urine and this puts more strain on your kidneys.

Therapeutic doses of lithium are a blood serum level of between .6 and 1.2.  The problem being, therapeutic levels are also close to the levels that will cause lithium toxicity.  The signs of this are numerous, but include blurred vision, feeling dazed, extreme thirst, tremor, and a few other things.  Having experienced it due to dehydration back when I was taking lithium, I can tell you it isn’t pleasant.  For some people, toxicity can occur at or below therapeutic levels.  Fortunately, you’ll find out fast enough to be able to quit cold-turkey and not worry about getting side effects from doing so.

Lithium has many possible side effects, like almost all drugs.  They’re easy to find on the internet, so I’ll not bother listing them all here.  One of the more annoying but overall tolerable side-effects is lithium can mess with your hair.  It can make it brittle, it can make it dry and difficult to manage, and it can even cause hair loss.  None of these are necessarily going to happen to you.  If they do, you’ll need to decide which you value more.  Your mental stability or your hair.  If there’s another drug out there that you can afford and it works for you, go for that, if it gives you issues.

Of course, lithium is probably the cheapest drug for treating bipolar disorder.  It’s been around forever, so it’s a generic prescription, and it’s cheap to make.  Lithium, being the third lightest element, is abundant.  Without insurance, you pay well under a dollar per pill.  This is rare for prescription drugs.

Can lithium fuck you up?  Yes.  But it probably won’t.  The biggest annoyance I experienced with it was the regular blood tests needed.  These are done once every three to six months.  There are few side effects that are cause for a great deal of concern.  Most are more annoying than harmful.  Always remember to know the side-effects to watch out for, as with all medication.  As a first option for treating bipolar disorder, I’d recommend it.  It’s cheap.  It’s effective.  And the side-effects are less likely to fuck you up long-term than a lot of the other treatment options.  Keep in mind, however, that if you do start taking lithium that you’ll need to kick up how much water you drink.  Like I said, it’s a salt and it’s excreted through your urine.  This means your kidneys need to work harder to keep things moving.  Water helps this.  I was very happy with it but decided to try a different medication.  This one worked effectively without drying out my hair.  But not everyone will be able to find something they can afford that will be effective.  Every brain is different, so you may end up having to play pill roulette before you find something that works.

Keep in mind that lithium, like almost all psychiatric medication (with the exception of those used to treat acute mania, such as antipsychotics including Geodon, Zyprexa, and Seroquel), takes about two weeks to start having a noticeable effect.  If you don’t start seeing signs of improvement within the first month, talk to your psychiatrist and look at other treatment options.  Just because the pill in question doesn’t work for you doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.  All medications are a case of “Your mileage may vary”.  Some people get knocked on their ass by ibuprofen while most people don’t.   Some people experience lithium toxicity at doses as low as 300mg a day.  Others need 900mg or more to see tangible benfefits.  Your experience won’t be identical to anyone else’s.  That’s why serum levels are so vague with lithium.  Some people see benefits at as little as .6, while others need higher serum levels.

You can find much more in-depth articles on the benefits and drawbacks of lithium all over the web.  A site I like is http://www.crazymeds.us  They’ve got lots of information on many of the drugs used in treatment for mental disorders.  And it’s all run by people as crazy as their readers.  They know where you’re coming from.  And they’ve got a good forum, too.

If you’ve got any questions about lithium, feel free to ask here.  I’ll answer to the best of my knowledge or direct you where you can get the answers you seek.  I also have experience with Lamictal (generic: Lamotragine), Zyprexa, and Geodon.

“LOL” is an acronym that means “Laughs/ing Out Loud”, not “period”.  Use it as such.  Because of overuse by morons, I’ve grown to despise the term.  Here that, shitheads?  You made someone hate your favorite substitute for substance.  You should probably posture and strut on your MySpace about how much control you have over some guy on the internet.  It’s about the only place you’ll ever get away with acting out your fantasies about being popular and well liked.  In reality, nobody likes you.  Your mother may love you, or say she does, but she secretly wishes she had just got that abortion she chickened out of.  She did have the cajones to actually spend a weekend drinking a lot, but she chickened out on that, too.  Which honestly explains why you’re the way you are.

To clarify, I’m saying you suffer from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.  In case you missed it.  What’s Fetal Alcohol Syndrome?  Why, you’ll just have to dedicate some of your meager mental faculties to looking it up.  I’m not doing your homework for you.

If you don’t use the term “LOL” inappropriately, you can basically disregard this entire entry.  You’ve committed no sin beyond taking a shortcut.  Which is still sending your ass to hell, but who am I to talk?  I’m an atheist that loves the LGBT crowd and will happily tear your beliefs apart if you piss me off enough.  Most people don’t achieve this, though, so don’t worry.  I still may end up picking on certain aspects of religion, but nobody will force you to read it.  Then again, if you’re beliefs can’t stand up to criticism, should you really hold them so dearly?  But that’s another discussion for another time.

I bid you all adieu.  Live Long and Prosper.  Also, wipe your feet next time, asshole.  I don’t like mud on my carpet.  Yes, you.  The one with the ridiculous wussy goatee.

Well, I’m here to spread optimism  and everything that this blog doesn’t have, in order to provide a nice foil to Napolean. I usually go by either BryAnime or DarthSomebody based on the context, although general pronouns are perfectly fine. Lesse, I’m currently attending Saddleback College as a computer science major, and enjoy video games, anime, and attempting to conquer the internetz. Oh yeah, and according to Napolean’s standards I’m a total whore when it comes to advertising. I suppose sellout would be a more appropriate term, alas, but I’ve come to terms with the concept of monetizing and the moral issues behind it.

Hopefully, between the two of us we can bring a bit more traffic to this site….

You know, there’ a lot of space we could use here to fill with ads, hehehe

Oh yes, please comment and subscribe, and check out my home site:

http://www.bryanime.blogspot.com

Also, he posts hentai on occasion.  You know you want some hot, anime porn.  Mmmm, porn.  Now with more tentacles!

ETA: I now have a post about how lithium can mess with you. http://napoleontheclown.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/lithium-carbonate-can-really-mess-you-up-can/

Not that I really care to go into details right now, but it decreased the enjoyability of a really good situation, and made things hard on a very good friend, someone I care about.   And I just have such a hard time shaking that feeling.  Fucking hell.  Teachers should be able to bust fucking yard sticks over bullies heads.  In my opinion.  Bullying is not a fucking joke.  It is not something to be shrugged off.  It has it’s effects for the victim’s life.

And a few other events that have left me with a few… issues.  That further fucked with the other night, making it go from being a fucking awesome night to simply pretty damn good.  It helped… but it showed me what issues I never really realized went on in my head.

Lithium, lightest of the elements to be a solid under normal conditions on Earth, is a heavily used substance.  And, should mankind take the ill step of using lithium-ion batteries in the next generation of vehicles, the rate will increase dramatically.  Already an impressive amount of lithium is being used on such batteries.  Lithium is also one of the first lines of treatment for Bipolar Disorder.

Currently, generic lithium carbonate pills can be purchased in the United States for around $100 for 60 300mg pills.  Lithium is plentiful.  We aren’t taxing the available supplies anywhere near their reserves.  Even with the enormous number of batteries and other devices that incorporate lithium, we use an minuscule percent of what we can easily mine.  But what about when we convert over to electric cars?

There are currently millions of cars in the US being sold annually.  Some meet their demise due to being involved in collisions.  Some are resold.  Some simply get parked in a field and left to rust out.  If all these vehicles were to use lithium ion batteries our lithium consumption would sky-rocket!

In just a few* years, lithium levels would start to run dangerously low.  Prices would sky-rocket.  Lower income families would be unable to afford prescription lithium.  Millions of bipolar sufferers would no longer be able to afford a very effective and relatively safe treatment option.  Society would collapse as lithium production grinds to a halt from supply being far from capable of meeting demands.  New technology would need to be developed within a short time-frame to avoid civilization itself from being destroyed.

I URGE you, every reader, to just say “NO” to lithium ion batteries!  They will destroy the planet and civilization!  Bipolar will become an even more expensive mental illness to live with.  Mining operations will increase, further raping the planet.  Peak Lithium will be worse than Peak Oil could ever be!  Mobile phones (AKA cell phones) typically have lithium as an important component.  Do you want these life-saving tools to go away?  Lithium already has a tremendous number of uses.  We cannot afford to tax this valuable element further!

*”A few” is on a geological timescale, not a human timescale.

NOTE: All numbers (implied or otherwise), with the exception of lithium carbonate prices, are pulled directly from my ass and are not to be taken at face value.

NOTE FOR THE CLUELESS: This isn’t serious in the least and is complete satire.  It is (obviously) a parallel of the very real problem known as Peak Oil.

Now that my job is looking up, I just need to kick myself into getting out and being social.   You have friends, Eric, fucking talk to them and plan shit to do.   Odds are at least one of them is social enough that you can meet new people.  And, if nothing else, you can have company aside from your brain and PC on Sunday nights.

Anyway, let’s work on updating this thing more often.  Less personal shit, more satire and thoughtful stuff.  It’ll make people happy.  And give me more hits, though that’s mostly a “Tee-hee, I’m getting hits!” thing.